A trip to Hull and back this weekend, a round trip of almost six hundred miles, reminded me of some of my pet peeves on the road! And yes, I'll leave the new "Mini" alone this time...
The first thing I was not really surprised to encounter was roadworks. But it was the sheer amount of them that really made the journeys longer! I swear I spent more miles at in "average speed camera" marshalled 50 mph limits than on roadwork-free roads! And most of them didn't even have anybody working on them!Of course, I understand the need for road improvements and the like, but surely the whole M1 doesn't need repairing?!
One three junction stretch of the M1, spanning a good five to ten miles, appeared to be down to one lane so they can put more overhead information boards up. With cameras. Always with the cameras! Speed does not kill... irresponsible speed kills. The autobahn in Germany seems to work perfectly fine, bring it in here I say!The traffic on the roads was also it's usual pain in the arse self. You had the normal twattish driving from almost all BMW drivers. Driving right up your exhaust pipe, too impatient to wait for you to get out of their fast lane, even though you're doing ninety!
You had the normal "I own the road" attitude from anyone in a 4x4. Cutting you up because they forget how ridiculously big their tanks are.
And you had the normal lorries overtaking lorries... when will bloody HGV drivers realise they are all speed limited?!
It's also been noted (by me) that the price of petrol has been slowly creeping up to extortionate levels again! And we can't blame the 2p rise in tax this time! A global recession, yet the price of fuel has gone up by 20p (equating to about 20%) in the last six or so months. It now costs over £70 to fill my bloody tank up!! I know... my own fault for having such a big car!Why is nobody else concerned? I haven't seen any complains about it recently...
That said, I still love driving. It helps that I still really love my car, despite the constant "French tin" abuse she gets from the girls at work. Black leather seats, awesome aircon/heating, good sound system... exceptionally good for those six hundred mile roundtrips. And let's face it, with my family in Devon and Phee's in Hull, there's a lot of driving to be done!
3 comments:
I agree with most of what you said, but if you had to drive a lorry you would know why they take every opportunity to overtake, come a hill and the one they are overtaking will probably slow everybody down. Plus they are trying to work where a you aren't. :)
Hello Wulfy - thanks for visitng me recently.
I'm not going to comment on roads of today beyond saying that I used to enjoy driving long distances. But nowadays it is such a chore - made far more difficult by having to keep one eye on the speedo and for a one-eyed driver like myself that makes it very hard going . . ;-)
Dad, I was trying to think of it from your point of view as much as possible! :-)
Ladythinker, I understand that (though my eyesight is fine with glasses). My better half is also blind in one eye, and is learning to drive at the moment. Time will tell how difficult she finds it!
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